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Well, I'm going to end up forgetting mine, and they'll hang along with all of the other glasses at the pub, regardless. (The local pub has this rail where they hang all the glasses people forget, somewhat near the rails where they hang all the wine glasses that never get used.)

Wait, your pencil ISN'T mechanical? I have a Faber Castell E-motion (looks like this, but in red) with 1.4mm of beastly writing power. The only one that comes close is the Rotring Rapid Pros with their 2.0mm leads and solid steel construction. It's hard to go back to regular pencils once you've handled a quality instrument; it's even more pronounced than rubber domes and buckling springs IMHO.

I thought 1.4mm was, but then you realize that heavy hands like mine won't break it under normal use. Then pencils become enjoyable to use. You do have to rotate it around a little bit since eventually the lead becomes sharp and fine by how you write.

Well, this is a subreddit dedicated to keyboards. All keyboards, but with a focus on mechanical ones. Most of the mechanical keyboards bought today contain switches manufactured by ZF Electronics, formerly 'Cherry corp.'.

They're basically the same layout as normal keyboards, for the most part, but instead of containing a membrane with little conductive pads on the back of rubber domes that are made to close circuitry contained on a piece of plastic in the board, they contain actual switches. These switches come in a variety of colors, each with a different weight, feel and tactile feedback.

There are also other switch manufacturers like Topre etc.

After a while of typing on a mech board, others feel like shoving your fingers into a tray of jam. It's horrible and you just can't go back. So now you're buying yourself these $150 keyboards that you don't need more than one of, because they last for ever and can be repaired by a badly trained monkey. But that other one is shiny and can have a snake move across it, so you need it, even though it costs $220 after shipping. And you want the keycaps made of a different plastic for $60. Please help us.

Seriously though, if you want a basic board with any of the most common switch types, I'd be happy to get you one for Christmas. It's the kind of thing you'd be reluctant to buy for yourself without having one already, but that you tend to appreciate as a gift. Heck, my friend bought one the other week after playing Civ V on his GF's for an hour. And my GF is considering picking one up after having encountered one in the wild at her bio lab.

I'd be happy to give you a more in-depth explanation of the different switch types and which you probably would prefer if you want? You can start by sending us pictures of your feet. In shoes, please.